Present-Day Economic and Social Conditions 237
the question of attaining regional self-sufficiency during the war.
It has also been belatedly realized that a region, placed so strategic-
ally for world-communications and subsisting at so low a level, is a
centre of social unhealth for other nations; and more specifically,
that the urban and rural proletariat of such a region is potentially
ripe to be attracted to Communism. The British Prime Minister
told the Arab League delegates in London in September 1946: 1
believe that the Arab states now have the opportunity of inaugurat-
ing important economic developments, from which the common
people of their countries would greatly benefit and which would
increase their strength and stability. I am happy to see chat co-
operation in such developments is one of the purposes of the Arab
League. I can assure you that H.M. Government will, in so far as
you ask for their help, do everything in their power to help you in
promoting economic expansion and social progress.' A fortnight
later the Director of the Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs
of the U.S. State Department similarly declared, 'Our primary
policy ... is to take whatever measures may be possible and
proper to promote directly and indirectly the political and econo-
mic advancement of the Near and Middle Eastern peoples. .. . We
should give appropriate assistance to developing the economics of
the countries of the Near and Middle East and to creating a higher
standard of living for their people.'
The prospects for greatly expanding industrialization are ham-
pered by the lack of raw materials for manufacture, except for such
local assets as the oilfields, the Egyptian cotton, and the Dead Sea
salts. In Palestine the Zionists claim that there is a sufficient reser-
voir of relatively skilled Jewish labour to make practicable manu-
facture from raw materials largely imported. Nevertheless, the
Anglo-American Inquiry Committee expressed considerable
reserve about the future of Zionist industry: 'There is boundless
optimism and energy, great administrative capacity, but a shortage
of skilled labour and, as a result, more quantity than quality of out-
put. ... There is the question, how far the consolidation and
further growth of Jewish industry and trade are dependent upon
maintenance of the momentum provided by continuing immi-
gration. .. . There is the question whether the high costs of pro-
duction and inferior quality of some products in Jewish industry
will permit the establishment of a firm position in the home market
without inordinate protection. There is the related question how